| DEFINITIONS: A positive destination is a ‘Managerial and Professional’ level jobs in Scotland (as defined by the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)) or continued study, 6 months after graduation. The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is used to group the occupations of respondents to the DLHE survey. The SOC contains eight major groups with the first three groups (SOC 1 to 3) covering Managerial and Professional occupations. More information on the SOC can be found on the HESA website: SOC guidance Scottish domiciled graduates from Scottish HEIs are students with a Scottish pre-study address, obtaining a qualification at postgraduate or first degree level from a Scottish Higher Education Institution (including the Open University). Percentage calculations exclude non-respondents and those who refuse to provide information. Changes to the National Indicator from 2011-12 Two key changes were made the DLHE survey (by HESA) in 2011-12:
a change to the questions used to derive respondents activities and
a change to SOC framework used to group respondents occupations.
These changes affect the comparability of data prior to 2011-12. Data for 2015-16 is only directly comparable with 2011-12 to 2014-15. This is indicated on the relevant time series charts and tables. Changes to DLHE questions used to derive activity, implemented in 2011-12 Following a review of the DLHE survey and consultation with stakeholders, the survey was re-designed to collect richer information from leavers, particularly regarding their activities on the survey date. As a result, substantial changes were made to the DLHE questionnaire issued to 2011-12 leavers. Leavers now report all activities (all employment activities, all education activities, all other activities) that they are undertaking on the census date and indicate which activity they consider to be most important. HESA derive destination categories from the responses, taking into account the most important activity and, in some instances, other activities the leaver is involved in. More information on the changes to the survey can be found on the HESA website: Changes to DLHE survey Consequently, the destination categories (i.e. employment, further study, unemployment etc.) derived from the survey in 2011-12 onwards have slightly different definitions from those derived in previous years. Changes to occupational framework, implemented in 2011-12 For those in employment in Scotland, the National Indicator defines those in ‘Managerial and Professional’ level jobs (SOC major groups 1 to 3) as in a positive destination. From 2011-12 onward, Standard Occupational Classification 2010 (SOC2010) is used for the DLHE survey whilst in previous years SOC2000 was used. SOC2010 was devised to address deficiencies in SOC2000, to improve alignment with the international standards and to reflect changes in the real-life occupational structure in recent years. Changes include the addition of new occupations to the framework and the reclassification of occupations which were thought to be in the wrong major group. Previous versions of the National Indicator Previously, ‘graduate’ level jobs as outlined by Elias and Purcell (2004)* were used to define a positive destination. The Elias and Purcell methodology was based on SOC2000 and cannot now be applied to SOC2010. Therefore, the National Indicator now uses Managerial and Professional occupations (SOC major groups 1 to 3) to define positive destinations. To improve comparability of the time series, this definition has been applied to SOC2010 (2011-12 onwards) and SOC2000 (previous years). * 'SOC (HE) A Classification of occupations for studying the graduate labour market' (Institute for Employment Research, Warwick)’ |